RIP rust in pieces
by Starsinger04
Summary: What happens when the lights go out and there's knocking on the door? As a small group of friends, they set out to find who's where and why's this happening to them, bots start paying the price sky high.


**R.I.P**

_Rust in Pieces_

Lightening flashed outside the base as the terrible storm raged on. "What a slag-aft day to do a patrol." Grumbled Swerve as he, Lightning Strike and Outback watched as the older 'bots drove from the long mountainous drive-way towards the base, within their load a tower full of energon awaited. "Hey! Remember it's a surprise and don't tell ANYONE!" The mechs turned to see their Aerial friend Winger, or as others call her Wings, march on over here from were Wipe-out was seated, the white femme didn't seem to hear, just watch as the rain pondered harder on the black surface of the driveway. "Meet me at Main Comm at 10:01 pm, got it?" The mechs stared at each other, confused at what she meant by 'meet me'. "But we've got training!" Outback called after her, as she turned around there was the slightest smirk on her faceplates, "no we don't, and besides I'm sure he wouldn't mind a few screams to be heard from his best warriors." That, had them worried.

Arcee, Wings and Moonracer walked down the hallways of the Autobot base at exactly 13:21 pm, the wild storm still raging. "Well nice talking to my favourite sister and medical officer, but I've gotta run so see ya." And with that the young silvery-grey Aerialbot took off. "You know Arcee, I'm not sure if she's fit to be running around in the base all by herself, she's barely 10 vorns old." Moonracer objected, her friend just smiled, "oh Moonie, you're just jealous coz you don't have any sisters, that's all." The sharpshooter was going to bite back when suddenly all the lights went out. "What was that?"

"I don't know check your comm link." Static greeted them as the two femmes heard nothing, Arcee moved closer to Moonracer so that the medical engineer could feel her friend's spark pulsing. "Moonie, what's going on? Why is no-one here? Why are all the lights out?" Moonracer had her own problems to figure out, but she tried to keep her friend stable. "Don't worry; it's probably another stupid prank." As soon as she spat the venom of 'prank' there was yelling and gunfire and then silence filled the air again, Moonracer heard Arcee take a gasp and merely shake from where she hid behind the older femme hoping that the purple paint job was invisible for both of them. "Sides'; *static*, Dino; *static*. This is Autobot Moonracer, does anyone respond, repeat is anybody out there, this is Autobot Moonracer, come in!" The violet femme growled in frustration, "Comm link's jammed, gonna need to reboot the system if we're to find anything or anyone, Arcee do you know where rec room is? There could be some bots there." She turned to the smaller blue femme who was visibly shaking badly from fear now. "Huh? Uh yea, it's this way." Little light was showing the rest of the afternoon which meant that the entire base will be covered in darkness. By the time the two female Autobots arrived they were in shock at the sight of Chromia's brother, he'd look like he had been shot from the energon leaking in his side and a sniping rifle in the servo that wasn't clutching the wound. "Dino, what happened?" Moonracer demanded the red spy to speak, but instead of answering he just fell to the ground groaning. "That-that Auto-glitch! Shot me down but I was lucky enough to fire three at his helm!" Dino snarled in the direction the 'Auto-glitch' had disappeared, Arcee looked at his wound and sighed as her friend started to patch him up. "If that's what you call lucky," she pointed to the mech's side still leaking lots of energy. "Yeah, well, I guess we got a fair match. Anyway, where's Chromia? If she finds there is a crazed bot running around she'll be the first to volunteer to take it down." That was true yet again,

"Oh Dino haven't you learnt yet? Chromia will find out anything!" Moonracer groaned while Arcee smiled, but Dino was still worried, he didn't want his sister to walk in here and-

"What Primus scrap-metal is going on here!?"

Too late, the pink femme had already suggested the rec room to be a good place to gather everyone. "Alright we need a plan, if what Dino says is true then we need everyone to be here so we can count who is here as well as find the crazed bot and who's missing." Ultra Magnus was giving out orders when;

"SHUT UP!"

All optics turned to Chromia, the dusky femme had obviously had heard something.

"Ya hear that?"

"Shh…. It's coming closer"

"Maybe it's the crazed bot!"

"Nah, it can't be it's -"

Screaming could be heard all over the base and then BANG it died away. "By Primus! LOOK!" Perceptor slowly pointed to a shadowed figure standing just metres away from the doors of the rec room, it was a femme with white outlines and a dark green insignia and purple optics to match, slowly she turned her helm towards the way the Autobots were hiding and snarled. "Wipe-out?" Arcee emerged from the shadows to take better look at her friend, but as soon as she did the young Wrecker's optics glowed and within small cracks and scratches fill with the purple light and energon other known as Dark Energon. Arcee managed a gasp before the terrized bot leaped from her peds and pounced on the other femme, Arcee might have been a week or two older but Wipe-out was winning the fight. "Wipe-out Stop!" BANG Moonracer lowered her gun as the white Wrecker fell to the ground motionlessly; light blue optics fell upon the one remaining femme crying not from fear, but from shock. "What are we gonna tell Bulk, that his sister died from Dark Energon?" Heatwave sneered, Moonracer glared at the rescuebot and bent down next to Arcee to inspect the dead form of Wipe-out, the pure white femme had streaks of purple all down her proto-form and faceplates as well as a string of purple liquid drooling from her mouthplates. "Looks like she was vaccinated, by an energy signature cross-pex." Moonracer looked around to see a crowd of confused faces, "which means that someone gave her a needle-shot with Dark Energon in it!" Oh, that's right, everyone is stupid, not!

"Even though, how are we supposed to know that she's not the only one? I mean, Dino said his assassin was a mech not female." Ultra Magnus still wasn't convinced neither Chromia, "yea, what about the gunshots? They sounded near the Nursery not down here!" Moonracer looked from Arcee, to Heatwave, then at the commander, to Dino and her optics rested on Chromia. She took a vent and said; "Alright, there is six of us here, which we should be able to divide and split. Dino you, Arcee and I will stay here in case anyone thinks we're here, while Commander, Heatwave and Chromia will find more bots and send them here, in groups, while also looking for the owner of the Assassinator, The Gunner and The Medic. Everyone know what to do?" Everybot within the room nodded, "wait! Where's Perceptor?"

"Do not worry I'm running diagnostics on the screens, mmm, nothing yet but will be sure to report." Moonracer couldn't be more proud of a retired medic back to work in an all mystery crisis. "Good, now remember shoot to injure not kill and double-back here after we've figured out who's gone into stasis lock." That had the younger bots smirking, Magnus just sighed as he gathered his small search party and headed off. "Arcee, help me with Dino's wound, we're gonna be here all night!"

So far only Optimus Prime, Elita-one, SilverBolt, Air raid, Fireflight and a couple of the Elders had come to the rec room. It was now 19:16 pm at night, the storm had soon to grumble out and with a couple of engineers and medics working on the computers, Moonracer, Arcee and Dino were doing the best they could to help sooth or patch up any Autobots. "I didn't see 'em! That frag head! Shot down one of the Carriers!" Kup swore as he recalled the moment he and his friends were chatting the next they were running for their lives. A blood chill scream rang out through the base interrupting one of Hound's battle stories. "What was that?" But Dino knew too well of that voice, that scream that could be heard so many times of when his sister was literally dragged into a mountain trek with nothing but Ironhide and Timber as punishment. "CHROMIA!" The red spy started to run but was held back by Moonracer, "shh!" If everyone was quiet they could hear snickering, "Outback, Swerve, Wings and Roulette." Elita named them one by one. "But-"

"Be quiet!" Suddenly everyone heard an engine, "Definitely a corvette," Tailgate identified the owner of those wheels as he made a sharp left turn and busted the doors of the weapons chamber open. "What's Sides-"

"Shh…. He's coming." Dino, Arcee and Moonracer readied their guns to shoot out the tires, instead of the silver twin a gold one appeared in shock of guns and rifles being raised at him. "Soz Sunny, have you seen Sides?" Just then NightStalker and TawnyFlare burst out of the shadows panting, the two Mothers had figured out their way here by reaching towards Sunstreaker for help. "We-we s-saw them! We saw them!"

"Alright calm down now, have you seen any other Autobots running around?" Ultra Magnus's team had arrived with the remaining crew. "Y-yes, n-no, oh! I don't know!" TawnyFlare complained just like her officer Prowl. "Uh, we sort of saw a few mechs running around and thought they were cons so we ran straight to you." NightStalker explained as she sat down next to her spark-mate while TawnyFlare kept pacing, neither Prowl nor Bluestreak had shown up. "YOLO! Hey isn't this awesome? It's a party!"

"No more like a death store or a funeral, Sides." Miko sighed as the blade-fury came tumbling in looking like his best night yet. "Wha? What about the power-outage and the fake scream from the basement?" All optics turned on him as he realized what was going on. "Uh oh," Moonracer rolled her optics.

"Look Moonracer, Arcee, Dino and Sideswipe, I think it's best if we cover more ground that way while your leader, Commander, should pick another team." Ultra Magnus nodded his respect to the Prime as he looked around. "This small area won't fit the entire army Sir, we need a bigger room." He added.

"Point taken old friend, now I'll take TawnyFlare, Tailgate, Kup and Trailbreaker." Optimus ordered as the two teams set off in opposite directions, the smaller team going up to the Ariel Cove while Optimus took his team down to the Elder's Place, Nursery and Dinobot's Rock-Cave. "You know, I've always taken knowledge in these sorts of things." Sideswipe recalled watching a movie with his brother once, "Yeah?" Moonracer encouraged the twin to speak up more, "Yea." Sideswipe responded before he grunted as something brushed up against him. "Uh guys, I think one of the crazed bots is up my aft, literally." "Moonracer lost interest in like five seconds ago," Arcee smirked at the sight of her insane friend having a 'piggy back ride' on Sideswipe. "Hello fellow Autobots!" Chromia climbed over the bigger frame and jumped down in front of the stunned mech, "oh great! Now I have to look after YOU!" Moonracer groaned as she and Sideswipe took the lead with Arcee in the middle and the siblings at the back arguing; "What were you thinking!? You could've almost been killed!" Dino complained as Chromia brushed it off, "no wonder why Sides thinks this a party, scouts are going crazy! Mag-bot took us there and Jazz was whipping up a storm!" Dino wasn't impressed. "Then why come here if there's a party?" Chromia looked at him with the biggest optics he'd ever seen, "coz I wanted to spend some time with you, you're my older brother!" As soon she finished speaking she smashed into the back of Moonracer, who in which groaned at the fact that the younger femme was too busy gossiping that she didn't see the head of the patrol stop right before her optics. "Sideswipe Dino headlights, now!" The sharpshooter was certain that there was something terrible about this grand room. "Why? Nothing's here and this is Ariel Cove isn't?" Chromia sneered the Aerialbots hardly did anything out of perfection other than fly! "Shh! There's bots in here!" Suddenly the darkness seemed to run away as the boys started searching the place with caution, it was so empty, then again it was the Aerialbots we're talking about, they're always out 'jetting'. A clicking of a neutron assault rifle beside Arcee told the younger femme to scream, scream like her life depended on it! "Ahh- huh?" A blinding yellow light travelled over her frame as she tried to figure who was pinning her to the ground or how many energy signatures she was reading. "Hey! It's me, Sundrown. And Cliffjumper, Pipes, Slingshot, Jetfire and Wings." Arcee stopped struggling for a second and looked up to see the other half of the Aerialbots. "The rest of your teams are in the Scout Centre, don't separate or you'll never find your way back, alright?" Moonracer ordered them, Slingshot still didn't trust them, yet he followed his companions all the way down to the frontline of the base. "Please can I stay with you guys? They're too mean! And they won't listen to me!" Wings whined the younger femme probably wanted her step sister. "Fine, but stay close." Moonracer gave up on keeping mission 'simple' an easy task.

Sooner or later there was going to be something, "we should split. Partner up!" Moonracer went with Sideswipe down to the control office to see if they'd find the power switch, while Chromia went with Dino to look for bots in their berthrooms and that meant Arcee was stuck with Winger. The younger femme wasn't scared at all, "well, okay let's go this way." The blue former scout led the way up to the Nursery, just then she yelped as something smashed into her faceplates. "Ha ah ha! Oh 'cee, you're a crack up! Ha ha!" Arcee turned around to see what she'd tripped over and gasped. "Wings! Look, it's Scarlet!" The Aerialbot stopped laughing and bent down to merely see hot pink outlines. "Oh Primus! Would you look?" There were blade marks all over the poor mother. "Wait! Kup and Hound said when their team was running from gunfire they saw Scar being shot at! Oh nooo!" The femmes grieved for their friend, but-

"Did you guys see anything?"

"Nah, although Firefly went to check something out after she thought she'd heard something."

"Then-"

Arcee didn't wanna finish, they already knew the answer. "We can't leave her here, she was carrying! By Primus! There is a monster in the base!" Wings exclaimed, Arcee silenced her sister, there was a creak and then a scream from not one but two mechs. "Oh my gears! That was the boys!" Wings frantically whispered, now Arcee was freaked out, she'd just about had enough of this! "Okay! This is what we're gonna do! RUN!"

All Dino could see was the blue mech that had shot him earlier, "glitch!" He seemed to swear. "Who me? Aww c'mon I'm not that bad!" A female voice stood out from the other noises that were going through the base, one Dino knew all too well. "Roulette, what are-"

"What am I doing here?" The light purple femme finished for the red spy, "well just too reason with you, I am one of the 'crazed bots' that is running around, yes!" Something about the tone had them both worried. "You're?-"

"TRAITOR! You said that you'd take down Optimus!" Lightning Strike growled and leaped to tackle the older femme, but instead she swung her purple hammer and it hit the young Aerialbot bang in the spark-chamber, Dino shrudded at the thought of that hammer hitting his. "You're crazy." The cherry-red sniper whispered,

"Yes, and you're a lot better shooting from a distance, oh and by the way, where is your sister, Chromia wasn't it?" Dino had realized ever since the two, Swerve and Lightning Strike, had come into view, that he was by himself the whole time. "So? I don't need her!" There was the slightest smirk on the assailant's face. "Oh but Dino! She'll need you." And with that the femme pinned down the red spy and whispered in his Auto-receptor; "Good luck! Coz I know neither of you want to be under this hammer." And was gone, Dino looked across to the dead blue form opposite from him, what was NightStalker going to say about her son? This was crazy!

Moonracer had Sideswipe hugging her aft after the terrible scream that rang out a couple metres away and the frightening screeches of tires and a bang and then a 'oof' as something was forced to the ground. "You know Sides I always admired your courage." The silver twin stopped dead, "really?" The sharpshooter kept walking on ignoring the mech completely. "No," Moonracer sighed as Sideswipe brushed up against her again, "you sure?"

"Yes Sideswipe."

"Really sure?"

"Well, mech, I don't believe that your status is quite what my valve would expect."

"What?"

*sighs* "You're not my type Sides, just a friend of mine that's all."

"Pretty sure?"

That's it! Moonracer was swift and fast as she grabbed Sideswipe's right servo and threw him against the wall with one servo in between his shoulder-plating. "Defiantly sure!" And released the silver mech, both his blades out in a worried matter that a crazed bot had snuck upon them. "Seriously sure?" Sides just grinned as Moonracer groaned and punched the side of the wall which had let her end up in an office. "From the look of things you ended up in Prowler's den." The blade-fury remarked as he walked in the room and rested himself on the door all fancy, probably thinking I told you so. Moonracer screamed as someone yanked her to the ground and Sideswipe's figure joined her as well, although Sides did know who it was from so many times he and his mates were dragged out of these offices he tried to tell Moonie who it was but she kept struggling, she was lucky to hit one of them in the leg and used this to her advantage, get up shoot one of them in the shoulder and the other accidently hit Sideswipe in the shoulder, both mechs yelped out in pain. The femme figure who'd been kicked stood up and shone headlights over the medical engineer. "It's okay, just Sideswipe and Moonie." Soon Moonracer figured out that Bluestreak, Bulkhead and Skylight were in here, the two Wreckers must've been in here when a meeting was going on for the lights to go out and Prowl to wonder off and find out what was going on. "We were having a meeting when the lights went out."

"But then Prowl insisted that we stay here in case it's a real emergency or not."

"So we stayed until that's when we went next door to find more bots and a terrible scream rang out through the whole base."

"So you stayed in here with multiple doors to go through and trick the Gunner, of course! Ha ah!" Sides figured out the story that was slowly planning out for Moonracer. "Who were the bots next door?" The small group got up and checked the key to see if it would open. "Blue?" So far Moonie could only see this was the Prime's office, but she recognized the voices; EarthQuake, Ironhide, Blaster, Brains, Wheelie and the Gem twins, GemStone and Mist cloud. "What are you all doing here?! There's a crazed Gunner running around!" Moonracer demanded, the biggest shadow that shone over the headlights, who Racer guessed was Ironhide, moved so that he towered over both mech and femme. "We'd all heard there was no comm link and screams from every corner, so we stayed here to protect the younglings." Which he pointed to the five huddled in the corner, "we all thought that someone was going crazy thinking that they could shoot with their darkness hiding them." Blaster finished.

"So? That still doesn't mean that you are all cowards! And still hiding isn't the best option-"

"Neither is splitting up!" Sides interrupted,

" Whatever! Just- ugh!" Moonracer was fed up at this stupid host. "That's it! I'm going alone!" And before Sideswipe could stop her she was already down the hallway. "Dang it! Moooonieeeeee!" He called but no answer came. "See you guy's later!" The blade-fury made his way down to the scout centre to report that Moonracer was missing when something bulky smashed against his frame sending them both to the side of a wall. "What the frag?!" Sides looked around to see a very angry, a very pissed Outback. "Oh it's you. Why'd ya do that?" He said as he pointed to a dent in his side, but his fellow Autobot wasn't listening to him, he was just staring at the newly dent in the twin's side. "Yo, Outback, you okay man?" Sides waved a servo in front of the wilder-rider, before he realized that this Autobot's optics weren't blue, they were yellow! The bot grabbed the black servo and threw his friend across the hallway. "Ow! Glitch! Why'd you do that!" Sideswipe stared at an upside down crazed mech. "Because, Sideswipe, you are in my way! If you hadn't noticed already, Roulette was the one who shot down Scarlet and Firefly while me and Lightning Strike hunted down the Prowler and Swerve gave Wipe-out a few tips on how to get vaccinated with Dark Energon, all the while Bluestreak just got told off by Cloudburst. So there, now you understand? Sides." By the time Outback was finished the silver blade-fury was on his peds. "You know I'd like to think that there was only one or two crazed bots running around, but I'd enjoy scrapping more!" With that both mechs launched at each other.

"Ugh! Why is this base so big!" Complained a dusky-pink femme as she rounded a corner and smacked into Swerve. "Hey! Watch where you're going!"

"Well, excuse me! But, this base is the biggest on the entire planet and it's covered in darkness! How was I supposed to know where I'm going, when you're the one with headlights?!" That, had the mech thinking about his past actions, "well consider it as you may that I didn't scrap you sooner." The Menace's optics cut across to the back wall and stared straight past Chromia, even the sharp-eyed Blacklight couldn't see what Swerve was looking at, and then there it was, the faintest voice that anyone had ever heard. "Bring me his spark!" Swerve nodded as if it was an order and turned back to the femme. "Sorry looks as if I'm going to dismiss your stupidly fate, I have to go and retrieve my lord a spark, bye bye." And took off down the hall, Chromia stood stunned at what she just heard and looked across to the wall where Swerve and the mysterious vocalizer had sprung. "Hello? Is anyone there? Don't be afraid, it's me! Pinky!" And there it was;

"Ah, Zeta's daughter!"

"What?"

"Do not be scared, merely you must want a lifetime to see us?"

"No….."

"Why not? Scared I'm right?"

"Come out! You're the one who is afraid!"

"Come out? Then you'll be afraid."

And as soon as the whispering had come it was gone, "hello?"

"Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!" BONG! "oooowwwww!"

The two femmes looked up to see Optimus looking mad with his arms crossed. "What is going on here?" The prime demanded,

"Well we saw Scarlet, sir, and we kinda saw how she died and the wounds, and then we uh, we heard two screams and a spooky creak."

"That does not mean that you two should go running off alone in a crisis situation!" Arcee had never seen Optimus this angry, "but sir-"

"No I will not allow it! You two have been causing trouble ever since Wings, Earthquake and Wipe-out had arrived!"

"But Optimus! She means no harm!"

"I'm starting to think who was responsible for a Russian experiment 60 human decades ago, now that no-one has come forward I'm judging your backgrounds and your's Arcee had been the most interesting."

"Maybe the cons did it, I mean they were always bad and humans do get kinda ignorant. You sure it was Autobot?"

"Of course! And what made me think of your loyalty was your past."

"But Prime!"

BANG "where is your sister?" BING "Arcee?" BONG "Wings!" The two were dragged to the ground and the Aerialbot was nowhere in sight, just then Optimus screeched in pain as something sharp was tightened to his neck. "Now do you see who is evil, Prime?" A much older, much more mature voice rose up, but the blue femme could see was Winger standing before Optimus with a smirk on her faceplates. "Wings?" The Aerialbot stopped smirking down on the struggling Prime and smiled at Arcee. "Arcee, come join us. Come be a part of family." The femme knew that voice all too well.

"Ashpipe?" Arcee couldn't believe it, her birth carrier had somehow possessed one of her daughters and Arcee was thankful it wasn't herself. "All you have to do is prove your loyalty, kill him!" The mech had nowhere to go he was literally dying in front of three femmes. "Yes Arcee, you saw how he just treated you and your past actions, you will be honoured in our land for that. Kill him!" The blue scout looked into her leader's optics, so royally blue, "no, I will not kill a prime or any other being, we all deserve to live in a lifestyle." She heard a clicking noise and then a femme-like growl. "TRAITOR! You're the weakest! Can't even kill an ant!" Wings leapt onto the older bot and clasped her servos around the neck. "Rust in Pieces! Coward!" Arcee struggling for her life now saw a metal pole like spear big enough for her to grab, and as soon as Wings was going to snap off Arcee's helm, the pole went right through her spark chamber. A powerful groan rangout through the base as the Aerialbot fell to the ground, Arcee sat before her sister, her tears leaking onto the younger femme. "Traitor!" was merely a whisper as the grey form faded, Optimus grunted as he got up and kneeled beside the blue scout. "I'm sorry Arcee, but it was her time." The Autobot looked at her leader with sad optics. "But I killed her!" She whined, suddenly the lights flickered on as Moonracer walked in shocked at what she had just heard.

"We will mourn for those loved that we have lost but as well as help clean up the base and to thank Primus not many sparks were lost." Ratchet finished and looked at Arcee, TawnyFlare, NightStalker, Fireflight, Slingshot and Bulkhead, who had come to the vigil. Chromia watched from the entrance of the base and sighed, it had been three days since the night and she still couldn't match the voice with who she knew. "Hey, you okay?" Moonracer watched as the group went silent and Ratchet go back to the medical bay. "Yea, you?" Her friend was still worried about them. "I just can't put my wheels on who was talking."

"Well maybe it was you just hearing things, we're are lucky to have survived the ambush, otherwise, you'd could've been stolen from them." That had sent a chill up both femmes amour, them, referring to the Dull pack, were very ambitious and dangerous. Moonie walked away to leave the young dusky femme to her thoughts, then it hit her. It was the same night she heard that voice when Optrinx had been murdered in Iacon. "Ashpipe," Chromia whispered, "what are you up to?"


End file.
